Presentation at Eawag in Environmental Psychology
Talk: Nadja Contzen
The psychology of environmental protection and public health: Individual
decision-making, individual behaviour change, and cooperation in social
dilemma situations
Many of today’s most pressing societal challenges are environmental-related, such as water
scarcity or overfishing, or public health-related, such as the spread of communicable
diseases through contaminated drinking water, open defecation or neglected hand hygiene.
Not only can research in the fields of individual decision-making, individual behaviour, and
social dilemmas and cooperation help to better understand these challenges, it can also
contribute to tackle these challenges. My talk first gives a short overview on my previous
research that focused on individual behaviour change in the water, sanitation, and hygiene
sector. I present results from two studies. The first study investigated the underlying change
processes of handwashing interventions in Ethiopia. The second study examined the
psychological mechanisms of collective ownership related to safe water kiosks in Kenya. The
main part of my talk focuses on my future research plans which include further studies in the
field of individual behaviour change in the water, sanitation, and hygiene sector in developing
countries as well as studies on environmental protection in developed countries. Another key
topic are social dilemmas and cooperation in environmental protection and public health. My
aim is to investigate changeable determinants of cooperation, such as collective identity,
which is of high relevance for the development of campaigns in environmental protection and
public health. Finally, I point out potential research projects in individual decision-making with
regard to new technologies and regulations in environmental protection and public health.